Grimalkin looked over his shoulder, twitching his tail disdainfully. “I would have thought the answer obvious, Goodfellow,” he said in a very slow, annoyed voice. “If you recall, the Dreaming Pool lies somewhere in the Briars. Very deep in the Briars, and never in the same place twice. To reach it normally, one very nearly has to stumble upon it by accident. And I do not wish to go floundering about the thorns with the lot of you for who knows how long. The Wishing Tree will get us there much faster.”

“How? Don’t tell me you’re gonna wish us there.” Puck looked faintly alarmed for a second, and glanced at Ash. “That didn’t work out so well for us last time, huh, ice-boy?”

I blinked at them in shock, but Ash snorted. “You were the one who made the wish, Goodfellow. I seem to recall telling you not to do it. Of all people, you should’ve known better.”

“Really?” I looked at the grinning prankster. “Do I even want to know?”

“You really don’t, princess.”

“He was trying to make Oberon forget about a certain prank that went off in Titania’s bedchambers,” Ash answered for him. “I don’t even remember what it was, but it backfired and caught Oberon instead of Titania. The Erlking was about ready to tear his head off.”

“Oh, great, ice-boy, make it sound like the worst thing ever.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long. What happened with the tree?”

Puck scratched the back of his head. “Well—and this was a long time ago, understand—we made it to the tree—”

“Which took no small amount of effort, because Oberon was hunting us all over the wyldwood,” Ash broke in.

“Who’s telling the story here, ice-boy? Anyway…” Puck sniffed. “We made it to the tree. And I wished that Oberon would just…forget about that little misunderstanding. I thought I phrased it very well, didn’t leave anything to chance. And, it worked…sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Everyone forgot us.” Ash sighed. “The entire Nevernever. No one remembered who we were, that we’d ever existed.” He leveled a piercing glare at Puck. “I very nearly faded away, thanks to you.”

“He’ll never let me forget that,” Puck told me, rolling his eyes. I stared at him in alarm, and he grimaced. “But yeah. It was a pain in the ass to get that wish reversed. Not something I’d want to do again. Wishing Tree equals bad news. And that’s not even counting the stupid thing guarding it.”

“Which is why I am here, Goodfellow.” Grimalkin sighed from up ahead. “Do not worry about the phrasing of the wish—I will take care of that. All you must concern yourself with is getting the queen past the sentinel of the tree. That is why you are here, I assume.”